pdf version of the entry Fictional Entities https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/fictional-entities/ Fictional Entities from the Fall 2018 Edition of the First published Thu Jul 26, 2018 Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophical issues surrounding fiction have attracted increasing attention from philosophers over the past few decades. What follows is a discussion of Philosophy of one familiar and quite fundamental topic in this area: fictional entities (both the issue of what such entities might be like and whether there really are such entities). A familiar characteristic of works of fiction is that they feature fictional characters: individuals whose exploits are written about in works of fiction Edward N. Zalta Uri Nodelman Colin Allen R. Lanier Anderson Principal Editor Senior Editor Associate Editor Faculty Sponsor and who make their first appearance in a work of fiction. Shakespeare’s Editorial Board Hamlet, for example, features the fictional character Hamlet, Doyle’s The https://plato.stanford.edu/board.html Hound of the Baskervilles features Sherlock Holmes, Tolstoy’s Anna Library of Congress Catalog Data Karenina features Anna Karenina, and so on. All of these works feature ISSN: 1095-5054 numerous other fictional characters, of course (Ophelia and Dr Watson, for example); indeed, some works of fiction are characterized by the sheer Notice: This PDF version was distributed by request to mem- abundance of their characters (Russian novels are often said to have this bers of the Friends of the SEP Society and by courtesy to SEP content contributors. It is solely for their fair use. Unauthorized characteristic). Fictional characters belong to the class of entities variously distribution is prohibited. To learn how to join the Friends of the known as fictional entities or fictional objects or ficta, a class that includes SEP Society and obtain authorized PDF versions of SEP entries, not just animate objects of fiction (fictional persons, animals, monsters, please visit https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/ . and so on) but also inanimate objects of fiction such as fictional places (Anthony Trollope’s cathedral town of Barchester and Tolkien’s home of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy the elves, Rivendell, for example). As stated, however, it doesn’t include Copyright c 2018 by the publisher The Metaphysics Research Lab entities located in the real world, although real entities do have an DRAFTCenter for the Study of Language and Information important role to play in works of fiction. Thus, neither London nor Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 Napoleon are fictional entities, although the first is the quite essential Fictional Entities Copyright c 2018 by the authors backdrop to what goes on in the Holmes stories while the second plays an Fred Kroon and Alberto Voltolini important role in the events described in War and Peace. (While London All rights reserved. and Napoleon are not fictional entities, some have thought that the London Copyright policy: https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/info/copyright/ of the Holmes stories and the Napoleon of War and Peace should be 1 View metadata,citationandsimilarpapersatcore.ac.uk provided by Institutional ResearchInformationSystemUniversityofTurin brought toyouby CORE Fictional Entities Fred Kroon and Alberto Voltolini classed as special fictional entities. This view has recently gained some Academic Tools popularity: cf. Landini 1990, Bonomi 2008, Voltolini 2006, 2013, Other Internet Resources Motoarca 2014.) Related Entries The above characterization suggests that fictional entities constitute a special type of entity. Not surprisingly, then, one fundamental 1. The Metaphysics of Fictional Entities philosophical question we can ask about fictional entities is a question about their nature: what kind of thing is a fictional entity? This question is As Thomasson (1999: 5) puts it, the first question amounts to asking: what separate from what seems an even more fundamental question: why would fictional entities be, if there were any? To this question different suppose that there are any fictional entities in the first place? After all, our answers have been proposed. But however much they differ, they all try to world never contained a Sherlock Holmes or a Rivendell—these alleged accommodate in some way or other what seems to be an intuitive datum entities make their appearance in works of fiction, not works of fact. facing philosophers who theorize about fictional entities: these entities Following the division in Thomasson 1999, we shall call the first question lack existence, or at least existence as ordinary physical objects. the metaphysical question, and the second the ontological question. According to this datum—call it the nonexistence datum—paradigmatic objects of fiction like Hamlet and Holmes do not exist. In support of this 1. The Metaphysics of Fictional Entities datum, note that the layperson would almost certainly answer “No” to the 1.1 Possibilism question of whether such objects exist, although she might qualify this 1.2 Meinong and Neo-Meinongianism answer by adding “there is at least some sense in which they don’t.” We 1.2.1 Meinong’s theory of objects also appeal to nonexistence in this sense when we want to dispute the view 1.2.2 Orthodox and unorthodox neo-Meinongianism that some alleged individual is a genuine historical figure; we might say, 1.2.3 Two kinds of properties vs. two modes of predication for example, that King Arthur does not exist, thereby underlining our view 1.3 Creationism that a search for a historical King Arthur would be in vain. 2. The Ontology of Fictional Entities 2.1 Semantical Arguments for and Against Realism Those who do not believe that there are any fictional entities (fictional 2.1.1 Russell’s anti-realism antirealists, as we shall call them) will claim that the nonexistence datum 2.1.2 Metafictional sentences and “in the fiction” operators has an ontological reading only: to say that fictional entities do not exist 2.1.3 The descriptivist problem for theories of fictional amounts to saying that in the overall domain of what there is there are no names such things as fictional entities. As they see it, fictional realists (those who 2.1.4 Pretense Theory do believe that there are fictional entities) are the only ones to give the 2.1.5 Quantificational arguments for realism datum a certain metaphysical reading, namely that fictional entities have 2.2 Ontological Arguments for and Against Realism the property of not existing (in some sense or other). They might also Bibliography insist that fictional realists are the only ones to think that the nonexistence 2 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Fall 2018 Edition 3 Fictional Entities Fred Kroon and Alberto Voltolini of fictional entities is determined by their nature as fictional entities. But 1.1 Possibilism this overstates the case. Because they hold that there are no such things as fictional entities, even antirealists are likely to admit that the fact that there One way to account for the nonexistence datum is the possibilist theory of is no such thing as some alleged entity X follows from the fact that X has fictional entities, which holds that fictional entities do not exist in the been shown to be fictional. That is what happened in the case of King actual world but only in some other possible worlds. In this respect, Arthur and many other legendary or mythological entities (fictional fictional entities are thought to be like other merely possible entities such entities in the broad sense). People originally supposed (cf. Geoffrey of as talking donkeys. According to standard versions of the possible worlds Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae) that King Arthur was a real framework, some things not present at the actual world exist as talking person, a British leader who ruled England after the departure of the donkeys at some merely possible worlds. Similarly, the possibilist theory Romans, until it was discovered that King Arthur is merely a figure of holds that Sherlock Holmes does not exist in the actual world, although he legend, a fictional entity. It was this discovery that licensed the conclusion does exist at some merely possible worlds: worlds in which the Holmes that King Arthur doesn’t exist. So it seems that even antirealists have a stories are fact. stake in the answer to the metaphysical question “What would it take for Such a possibilist theory is faced with a problem of ontological something to be a fictional entity?” indeterminacy. For there is more than one possible world in which Conan One further comment about the nonexistence datum before we turn to Doyle’s Holmes stories are fact, and in which there is a witty, cocaine- various accounts of fictional objects and the ways in which such accounts addicted detective called “Holmes” who lives at 221B Baker St., has a cope with the datum. As we have already seen, it is natural when friend called “Watson”, and does the things recorded of him in the Holmes discussing the datum to use quantifiers such as “Some things are …” stories. Not all of these Holmes-candidates are the same; while they all (“There are things that are …”), and “Everything is…”, whose domain match each other in terms of what the stories say about Holmes, they may appears to include both existent and nonexistent objects. We do so when be very different in other crucial ways—they may have had very different we say, for example, that there are objects, such as fictional objects, that childhoods, including different parents, and so on. (Indeed, when don’t exist. Fictional antirealists will take such talk with a grain of salt, characters are underdescribed in a story, a single possible world may since they do not acknowledge a sense in which there really are any contain many individuals who fit exactly what the story says about the fictional objects.